


Coming home

by Miss_Katherine (for_steggy)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Bittersweet, F/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reunions, character piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29896440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_steggy/pseuds/Miss_Katherine
Summary: Steve gets reacquainted with his home before he goes to Peggy.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	Coming home

* * *

Being back in the 1940’s is strange, surreal. It’s…changed.

Or maybe he has.

The idealism he once knew and longed for — it doesn't feel quite real — like a TV show. The simplistic scenes and friendly faces feel fake. Or maybe it’s just time and unkindness that have worn him down.

He hadn't known what to expect. He tried not to think about it at all. Afraid maybe, because this was not 2012 or 1970. This is home, his neighborhood, his _time_. He sees the place his mother used to take him for ice cream on a rare occasion when they had change to spare, and it brings a sharp pang. He had nothing to remember her by in the future.

The barber shop he used to habit is where he left it. He wonders if Giovani is still standing inside by the third chair. He probably has white at his temples now instead of gray. Steve is tempted to look, but can’t seem to make his feet move.

The minutes fade into each other as he watches people on the street in their spring outfits, the women wearing more colorful dresses since the end of the war, fake flowers and victory rolls in their hair.

A sense of belonging begins to take form as the seconds roll by. Something slides back into place, painfully. The knot in his chest tightens unbearably fast. And he begins to cry.

He hadn't expected to, but his large frame shakes with the feeling. He leans against a tree and crumples and covers his face with his hand.

When he was small, the only place he belonged was here. These streets. Of course, then the army happened, and Peggy, and the Commandos. And then the crash; waking up in a New York distorted beyond recognition, everyone he knew gone, and the endless _fighting._

At the time he had been grateful for the distraction of warfare. He hadn't know what to do with himself and it tethered him to something larger than his own grief. The Avengers needed him. He needed to be needed.

But did he ever really belong there?

No, he doesn't think so. Not with the culture or the morals or the political climate, not even with Tony until the very end. He cared for his fellow Avengers, his soldiers in arms, but there seemed to be a disconnect too great to truly bridge.

Maybe with Natasha. They had shared an understanding. They gave each other enough room for their demons to settle between them. She seemed to understand his loneliness; what was more — she understood she couldn't cure it.

But he belonged here. In Brooklyn. _This_ Brooklyn. He feels it wrap around him.He belonged to these streets before he belonged anywhere. Here he isn't Captain America, the war hero or a former outlaw, depending on who you talked to. He isn't anyone at all. He’s just little Steve Rogers, right back where he started.

But where he belongs most of all now is with Peggy.

The thought of her makes him stop short. He can’t remember the last time something inspired such raw, fearful hope in him. Never before had he felt someone pierce through soul the way she did. She knew him. His other half that had been missing like a ghost limb.

The thought of seeing her again comes as close to an asthma attack as he can remember. The sort of blind optimism he hadn't known he was still capable of seizes him.

He is too agitated. He takes several turns around the block, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells. Several women give him curious looks as they passed him on the sidewalk. They probably wonder at the handsome, worn looking man with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes.

He stops in a little deli and orders a bagel. He wasn't lying when he told Sam that the food tasted better in the future, but to be fair, the last thing he ate here was war rations. There are few things that can be beat a fresh 1947 New York bagel with cream cheese and locks.

He takes a bite and laughs hysterically. The man behind the counter looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…this is really good,” he tells him, sobering, wiping at his eyes.

The man’s face softens. “Been a while since you been back here, huh?” It wasn't uncommon nowadays, lost souls finding their way back to their places of origin. Steve nods, unable to speak.

The man sends him with another bagel and a fruit danish on the house. Part of him wants to object, but it’s the first interaction he’s had in this place, and it’s so unbearably kind. Instead he leaves a five dollar bill in the tip jar.

He is reminded all at once that this generation has had a common experience of the war he lived through.

Steve does go into a barber shop, a different one than Giovani’s. He sits back in the chair and listens to the chatter of the other men, marveling at the simplicity of it all, how they talk about box scores and the local news. Relaxation and a strange sense of the surreal, of deja vu, creeps deep into his bones.His barber nudges his shoulder when he’s finished, thinking he fell asleep.

Steve opens his eyes and looks in the mirror with a small smile. He runs a hand over his jaw. There is still no closer shave than that at the hands of an old barber. His hair too has been cut in the current popular fashion.

It all feels like shedding a skin — his appearance, once so neatly kept, had become a sign of departure and separation for many years. A way of rebelling against regulation when he couldn't trust his own government, and an expression of the internal crisis that was no doubt an extension of that. As so many things, it too has now come full circle.

Steve shakes the barber’s hand and tips him well, and the old man watches him go with an expression of mingled awe and disbelief on his face.

He leaves the place whistling, turning a nickel over in his pocket. The charge on his nano tech suit won’t last forever, and he decides to finish off his reintroduction into this century by buying something more era appropriate. He wants to at least look decent before he shows up on Peggy’s doorstep.

He shakes his head and smiles fondly when he sees that all the trousers are high waisted. SHEILD had given him a wardrobe something akin to costumery when he first woke up, and he had gotten plenty of ribbing from many of his fellow Avengers as well as many looks on the street for that particular 21st century faux paw. Hill took pity on him one day by sending over several packages of more modern clothing to his apartment, although she neither confirmed nor denied it was her. But Steve knew for a fact that it wasn't Natasha; she would have taken credit.

The owner of the store, a savvy looking little Italian man, comes over and starts making suggestions. Steve is all ears. It becomes apparent that the man knows what he’s doing, and takes apparent joy in styling him. When he took Steve’s waist and shoulder measurements he threw up his hands and muttered something in Italian. Steve pretends not to understand.

He picks out several pairs of pants, matching suit jackets and casual blazers. Steve tells him cautiously that he really only needs the basics, but the man won’t hear it. “I will give you _unbeatable_ price. A beautiful canvas needs good paint.”

He suppresses a chuckle. A long time ago he probably would have been embarrassed. Now he just inclines his head and lets Alberto do what he wants.

By the end he has on a casual blue button down, a pair of tan trousers, brown loafers, and a leather jacket that heralds back to the ones he used to wear in the future. (A weirder sentence there had never been.) But Alberto still won’t let him leave without a tan belted trench, a dark grey sweater, a sports coat, and a perfectly angled stetson with a navy band to match his expertly tailored double breasted suit. He also insisted upon the tailoring. Steve thinks Peggy would approve. He’s got some change to spare anyway, and the man is very talented.

Steve brings his trunk load of new things to a hotel and settles in for the night, feeling as close to anticipation as he has in a very long time.

*

He thinks that maybe he has it backwards. Maybe Peggy never got old and died, maybe he did. Maybe he is a specter, a shadow sent to haunt her and horrify himself in the process, because he sees her coming through the screen door young as she ever was, and here he is, older than he ever was before.

For one sickening moment it all feels wrong. Not like it should, not like he wanted it to be when he woke up from the ice, because he’s not exactly who he was then. He’s tired, worn down, not fresh and vital like she deserves.

But then she opens the screen door and his mind finally screeches to a halt. None of it matters, because his Peggy Carter is standing in front of him, looking straight into his soul. He can’t think, and nor should he, because all he ever thinks about when he has the luxury of thinking at all (though he tried to stop himself, to move on), is _this._ Or rather the impossibility of this. All he can do now is stare.

“Hi,” he says, although it barely comes out in a whisper.

“Hello,” she says back, equally soft. And then, unbelievably, “You had better come in, I think.”

He nods and steps inside. Just like that.

It feels like time is traveling through him, all of the years passing backward into his chest with enough force to be painful.

He always had the same dream, the same idea of how he would act when this happened. His younger self imagined marching up, hat in hand, knocking on the door with a solemn look and saying a corny line about missing his ride and collecting a dance. It isn't like that.

Steve keeps his distance for now, afraid to break the spell and have the illusion come crumbling down, despite knowing that it won’t. Peggy busies herself with the tea, but he sees her glancing at him through the open kitchen every few seconds like she’s nervous he’ll evaporate. He doesn't blame her, not one bit.

When the tea service is done she stacks it all on a little silver tray and walks it into the living room. Steve watches her as she does so; her whole body, he realizes now, outward composure aside, is white. The tea tray rattles.

He snatches it out of her hand and sets it down. He grabs her by the waist before she can even think.

“Tell me,” he says into her hair and closes his eyes. “Tell me I’m home.”

“You’re—” she can’t say it. Her voice is gone. She whispers it hoarsely, trying again. And then she can't stop saying it.

“It’s over — finally,” he rasps. 

Peggy nods, but whispers, “No, darling. You’ve got it all wrong — It’s just begun.”

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently today is the day where I dump all of my old writings onto the internet. Woohoo.  
> Honestly, this one was too close to my heart to just stick in my snippets collection.  
> So here you are, everyone <3


End file.
